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Comment by nl | Hacker News Reader

Honestly, you can get great USB-C to headphone jack converters for $10. Just accept the market has moved on and live with it.

Also the headphone jack isn't 100 years old.

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I've a macbook pro at work and have to use 3 dongles, to get hdmi, display port, full sized USB, etc. I still don't have a wired ethernet, or headphone jacks, probbaly need another 2 adapters. It looks like an octopus, and is not mobile with that junk plugged in. Adapters suck. Basic connectivity should be maintained on all devices.

And you really think your use case is ordinary? That majority is using like you do? Because the alternative is majority walking with Swiss cheese of a MacBook without using even half the ports.

Don't Macbook Pros have Thunderbolt ports? If so, then you don't need all that crap; just get a Thunderbolt docking station. It'll have all the ports you want in a single box, which plugs in with a single cable (which also carries power). My Dell laptop has this, and it works fantastically.

Of course, it still sucks not to have HDMI or full-sized USB on the laptop itself for when you're not at your desk, and that's a great reason not to buy a Mac in the first place, but I'm assuming you were stuck with that POS by your employer. My Dell has HDMI, 2xUSB3.0, and a headphone jack all on the computer, and still manages to be quite thin and light. (No, there's no wired ethernet or DisplayPort, but you don't really need those on a laptop outside the docking station.)

All MBPs have headphone ports too. And recent ones have HDMI and a SD card slot.

It's good to see a a return to more varied ports on board!

If I'm in the office and go to a meeting room I have to bring at least one adapter to be a able to project on a screen. It's awkward in practice.

All Macbook Pros have headphone jacks[1].

> full sized USB

What do you mean by this?

[1] https://www.apple.com/au/macbook-pro-13/specs/ (search for audio. Older ones have them too)

I’m guessing USB-A port

Just buy a dock. I have this one, it's boring and simple and it works great: https://plugable.com/products/ud-cam

It's not portable then. If I have a Dock, then it's a desktop. When I move to a meeting room I loose all my ports.

In this case I’d expect the office to have a dock present in all meeting rooms.

The meeting rooms don't have docks, they have hdmi only, one for videoconf TV, another one for the projector. Should the room have 2 docks, one for each? Why cant a 2 to 3k laptop just offer the ports they used to.

Don't think of the USBC/TRS adapter as a dongle for your phone. Think of it as an extension for your headphone wires. Why would you ever remove it from the headphones?

Because I plug my headphones into multiple devices?

While the 3.5mm headphone jack is only ~70 years old [1], the quarter inch jack has it's roots in the late 1870's [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phone_connector_(audio)#Miniat...

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35253398

I went from "they had it in the 30s?" to "omg 1950 was 70 years ago!"

It is funny how long the approximation "subtract from 2000" to keep math simple sticks.

When you find a phone with a quarter inch jack I'll concede the point :)

Doesn't work on all phones, like my Pixel 4. That was a big surprise. There is no way to connect anything else but BT.

Are you using the OEM provided adapter? The reason is probably due to the usb-c standard being a clusterfuck and essentially having two different types of "usb-c to 3.5mm dongle":

1. active dongle that gets digital audio signals from the phone, and converts that to analog using an onboard DAC

2. passive dongle that receives analog audio signals from the phone, and simply converts the pinout from usb-c to 3.5mm[1]

If you try to use the latter dongle on a phone that doesn't support that use case (ie. it doesn't contain onboard DAC), it will fail to work.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB-C#Audio_Adapter_Accessory_...

Passive dongles are the only ones that actually have something to do with USB-C standard, as those allow to simply route the analog connection through the USB-C port. Active dongles are just regular USB sound cards that you can plug into a PC too and which could use a USB-A plug just as well.

This is an active USB-C to headphone dongle designed for phones: https://www.amazon.com.au/Stereo-Adapter-Hi-res-Headphone-Co...

It specifically mentioned Pixel 4 compatibility.

Yes, I think it might work on a PC too, but I've never tried that.

Add a passive USB-C to A dongle and you can use stuff like this: https://www.amazon.com.au/EZONEDEAL-microphone-external-Exte...

Technically, this is more or less the same thing as what you linked to, just in a different form factor.

Or even this: https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/5-1-Channel-USB-2-0_6...

Also same thing, but likely to have a crappier DAC.

This isn't true. I had a Pixel 4 and it worked fine.

You do need to make sure you get one with a built in D/A converter (some are just pass-through).

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